The word uywqhnai - "lifted up" - appears fairly commonly in the Johannine gospel. In John 6:5, 11:41, and 17:1 Jesus lifts up his eyes; in the so-called "first stone gospel" 8:7,10 Jesus lifts himself off the floor; and at the Last Supper Judas lifts up his heel. But when Jesus is lifted up by a third agency, that is more technical. This usage appears in 3:14, 8:28, and 12:32-34, each time looking forward to the time the Son of Man will be "lifted up".
That this prediction is important to John's gospel is not in question. Not only does Jesus state it thrice (rule of threes!) but the passion play in John 18 looks back to the last and most powerful of those statements. In 18:32, the Jews have refused to execute Jesus, guaranteeing Jesus's punishment by Romans. The narrator of 18:32 used the same word 12:33 used: it "signifies/semainein" how Jesus is going to die. The Jesus Seminar in a footnote noted this as a link between 12:33 and 18:32. "The logic here seems to be that" the lifting up anticipated in 3:14 and 12:34 (and 8:28) was, in 18:32, to be by crucifixion. I would have to agree.
But uywqhnai is not elsewhere important in Johannine literature. This project will investigate whence that usage did derive, if not in 1-3 John.
John 12:34 reads, "The crowd replied to [Jesus], 'We've learnt from the Law that the Anointed will stay
forever, so how can you say "it is destined that the Son of Man be lifted up"
(dei uywqhnai ton uion tou anqrwpou)?'
"
In context the crowd are referring to Jesus's claims in 12:23, in which it is time for the son of man to be
glorified, and 12:32, in which "I will be lifted up
", uywqw.
(12:33, meanwhile, belongs with either 12:32 and 12:34, and will be dealt with later.)
But John 12:32 concludes the section of 12:27-32. In that section, God Himself has just thundered that He would glorify His name at Jesus's call. The crowd at 12:34 ought to be awestruck and concentrating on Jesus alone. Since Jesus has just said "I" - not "the son of man" - will be lifted up, the crowd ought to be asking why "you" will be lifted up. It is also unlikely the crowd would remember the 12:23 comment on the Son of Man (which had "glorified" instead of "lifted up" in any case), and even if they did, it is likely they would not have needed to question the son's identity. Finally, the crowd are asking why the Son should be lifted up. That question is theoretical, and does not require the Son's presence - in fact, it assumes the Son is not around to settle the question. Jesus had been claiming that the time had almost come in the concrete. The question of 12:34 is out of place in 12:27-34.
In John 3:14, Jesus told Nicodemus "As Moses lifted up the snake in the desert,
so uywqhnai dei ton uion tou anqrwpou
". The relative positions of
uywqhnai and dei comprise the only change between 3:14 and 12:34.
3:14 also parallels 12:23 and 12:32. But 3:14 has the lifting up that 12:23
lacks, and the son of man that 12:32 lacks. If 12:34 requires Jesus to
make a controversial statement about the Son of Man's exaltation, as John 12
believed, then 3:14 is a better prologue for 12:34 than is anything else in John 12.
Admittedly John 3:14 fits chapter 3 better than 12:34 fits chapter 12. John 3:1-13 has Nicodemus approach Jesus and confess that Jesus comes "from God". Jesus then explains what that means - he is born from above (anwqen), and the spirit blows through the material world but one does not know whence or whither. This suggests that Jesus is not of the material world. In 3:14, Jesus tells that he will be lifted up - back up, in context - and then 3:16-21 go on that familiar speech on how God so loved the world that he sacrificed Jesus for it.
But there are differences between John 3:1-2,14 and the rest of chapter 3. First, John 3:14, like 3:2, is a pivotal statement: 3:2 begins the discussion and 3:14 ends it, at least on Nicodemus's side (and 3:15 onward may be a speech of narrator John rather than of Jesus). Second, John 3:14, like 3:1-2, is a specific reference to actions on Earth - the deeds of Moses and the Son of Man - where the rest of that section concerns the spirit world. And we already know that the words of 3:2 and the attitude of 3:9-12, and John 3:3-5,7 too, derive from controversy tales outside John 3. As does 12:34.
John 3:14 fits in John 3 because John 3 was in part constructed around it. That chapter is a sermon on what John felt to be the connexion between 3:2 and 3:14 (and 2:11 - note "semeia"). But John's source 3:14+12:34 should be treated as a literary unit, in a 12:34 context. Note that this need not be a contiguous unit; 12:33, as an example, fits as well between 3:14 and 12:34 as between 12:32 and 12:34.
John 12:33-36 is so irrelevant to its preceding verses, that Rudolf Bultmann went so far as to posit an earlier version of John (Koester p. 250 n.1) in which 12:34-36 appeared between 8:21-29 and 10:19-21. Koester did not endorse this for John itself, but suspects that a dialogue gospel like "Dialogue of the Saviour" may have served a similar purpose as one of John's sources. Assuming Bultmann is in general correct, 3:14+12:34 could still belong together, but as a preface to 12:35-36 or other parts of a hypothetical Johannine-language predecessor to the Gospel.
The former is out, because John 12:34 is irrelevant to succeeding verses as well as preceding.
In 12:34 Jesus's accusers have asked him what he means
by "being lifted up", and who is the "Son of Man". Instead of answering,
Jesus tells them to "walk while you have light
".
If Bultmann's reasoning for cutting loose 12:34-36 from John 12:20-33 is that it is not relevant to 12:20-33,
he would have to cut 12:34 from 12:35-36 as well.
In any case Bultmann would be hard put to it to find another place for 12:34 in a Johannine dialogue source, because 12:34 is not Johannine in language. John 12:34's "Son of Man" does not appear in the Johannine epistles, and being "lifted up" only appears in John's Gospel, and there only in other passages like 12:34. Contrast with John 12:35-36: 1 John also has walking in the light, being against darkness, and being children of light (=God in 1 John).
John 12:34 at least is not in origin Johannine. John 3:14+12:34 might be a free logion, or it might have belonged to another non-Johannine gospel.
If John 3:14+12:34 was in a non-Johannine gospel, we should like to find one which provides the controversy hinted at in 3:9-12 and 12:34, which John has used at other points, and which looks back to the example of Moses and forward to the fate of the son of man. Just such a gospel exists, in the fragments of Egerton Papyrus 2.
John 3:14 provides the wording of the statement that 12:34 requires in order for the latter to question it. What the Jesus Seminar call "Egerton 1" (fr. 1v) and "3" (fr. 2r) preserve the context of crowds and controversy that John 12:34 assumes, but that was absent from John 3:14 - and demonstrably lost from John 3:2.
Also, Helmut Koester (pp. 208-211) has noted that a number of John's dialogues represent a development from Egerton 1 and 3:2. Other scholars have already reconstructed Egerton 1 and 3 based on its parallels with divergent parts of John, overconstructing it in two instances. John's manner of reworking Egerton would have remained consistent as well. John took Egerton 1, split it, and expanded each portion to create two Moses speeches in John 5:39-47 and 9:28-29; John took the preamble to Egerton 3 where the lawyers praised Jesus, and gave it to Nicodemus for a very argument in John 3:2. It is exactly this method - splitting and expanding to double a saying - that I am conjecturing for John 3:14+12:34.
Egerton 1 is also very interested in the words of Moses; and where John 12:34 has the Law (nomoV), Egerton 1 has the legal specialists (nomikoi).
It is not explicit in John 3:14+12:34 nor Egerton that either associated the "son of man" with Jesus.
John 12:34 does not even resolve the saying's ambiguity, of whether
Jesus is saying the son of man will die or ascend when he is "lifted up".
John 3:14+12:34 doubtless has its origins in a controversy story like that of giving to Caesar.
But as 3:14+12:34 stands, the latter verse accentuates the saying's
importance, and the saying itself is a prediction.
Elsewhere, the narrative of Egerton 1:8-9 looks to the "the time for [Jesus] to be turned over
",
and has Jesus announce that he fulfils Moses's prophecy -
i.e. that Jesus is a Messiah, not merely a teacher or prophet himself.
More, Jesus's claims in John 5:39-47 to the effect that he is presaged in Moses have only John 3:14 to back him up - but John 3:14 was a word given to one man, at night, in private. In the context of both John 5:39-47 and Egerton 1, Jesus has failed to offer any proof. But if John 3:14+12:34 preceded Egerton 1, then Jesus's proclamation makes sense as a sermon on his identity as the fulfilment of Moses.
It remains to explain why the author/compiler of John 5:39-47 felt he no longer needed such an explanation. I would say that by the time of compilation, John's community was already "in the light" and outside Judaism. They no longer felt a need to dispute with "the Jews" on their own turf, but just to vent spleen at them.
If John 3:14+12:34 belongs to any gospel prior to John, it most likely belongs to the Egerton Gospel, and prior to what is in Egerton 1 / fragment 1-verso.
With these two new verses, what we can extrapolate from Egerton increases. We have Egerton referring to a specific event in the life of Moses. Egerton also had Jesus use "son of man" to play on his audience's apocalyptic expectations, just like the other gospels, most likely referring to himself. Lastly, the way Moses erected the staff shows the method by which the Son of Man will ascend to heaven; with leverage, bound to a wooden beam.
Unfortunately John chose to replace Jesus's answer to 12:34 rather than to preserve it; and the Egerton papyrus starts some verses away from where 3:14+12:34 leaves off. I also cannot say if Egerton ever had a commentary (like John 12:33) that the "lifting" would signify/semainein the crucifixion, or if it did not and that therefore John was the one who put in semainein as an allusion to the shmeia - or even if the Signs Source had done it, making John a harmony between Egerton and Signs. These limitations spawn others.
It was already the case Egerton 3:2 did not let the crowd call Jesus's miracles 'shmeia', as John 3:2 allowed for Nicodemus under John 2:11's influence. Without even semainein it is still too early to tell if Egerton was or was not the Fortna "Signs Source".
It cannot be deduced from this that Egerton had a full Passion (suffering) account incorporating Isaiah 53, Psalm 22 and the rest, like the canon gospels. It also cannot be deduced (maddeningly) whether Egerton's conclusion will even involve resurrection.
John 3:14+12.34 was not originally part of John, and of all the known pre-Johannine gospels the twin verses best fit the Egerton Gospel. For John, this explains how John 12 got its choppy style and how John 5:39-47 lost its pretext (in context). For Egerton, it further cements its place among the narrative Gospels.
Any thoughts? e-mail me :^) zimriel@sbcglobal.net
The first version of this project was written 29 March 2002. 30 March, better listed "That Which Is Known And Unknown" in new chapter. 31 March - 1 April, subtitle, place in Egerton. 2 April, John 12:35. 6 April, crucifixion. 12 May, improved John 3 talk. 4 July, John 3:3-5,7.
1 October 2003: I went Googling and found that Dr Willker took this page seriously enough to grant a link. As a result I felt that this project deserved a revision. 6 April 2008: revised conclusion for clarity. Fixed earlygospels>gospels in links.